From time to time, themes emerge in my life, leitmotifs that span a few weeks or months under the day to day events. I don’t know if it’s some kind of metaphysical creation, or a subconscious trigger that causes me to notice different things, but lately, the theme has been sarcasm.
A week before I started my job, I went out to dinner with my father to celebrate his birthday. As a gift, I gave him a container labled “57 Things I Learned from My Father.” Inside there were fifty-seven strips of paper containing things I’ve learned from him, some funny, some serious, some weird. (“Squirrels will eat spaghetti if you offer it to them.”) One of the items that seemed to come out of the clear blue sky was the statement “Sarcasm can be really unattractive.” It wasn’t something I had though much about over the years, but there the statement was, and it was true. My father never had much interest in my sarcastic wit. He yelled at me a lot for being a wise-ass, but when it came to out and out sarcasm, he ignored it. I always thought it was because he didn’t get my jokes. I still think he doesn’t get a lot of my jokes, but in a different way now.
Three days after the birthday dinner, I started my new job. I’ve been adjusting to the lack of cynicism, and especially sarcasm, by wondering about the roots of it, the use of it, and what purpose it serves. Earlier this week I was thinking that sarcasm is a kind of mask, it is a form of not telling the truth. It doesn’t really fit into the idea of right speech, to get all Buddhist about it. The most enlightened people I’ve met are not sarcastic. Yet, sarcasm is pervasive in our culture. Much of our humor is based on it. Could I be funny without sarcasm? The two words most people use to describe me are “funny” and “smart.” What about smart? Could I be smart without being cynical?
At first, I thought, “No way.” After all, part of being smart is knowing that things are not always as they seem, and not being gullible. Yet, if one sees things exactly as they are, there is no need for cynicism. Ah. Intelligence and perception – right view, maybe?
Cynicism is really the root of sarcasm, I decided. Sarcasm is the rhetorical form of cynicism. And so, on I went for a couple of days, in the car, as I drifted off to sleep, turning the concepts of cynicism and sarcasm around and around as if they were brand new ideas, noting how interesting it is that this should be emerging as a theme. Then, Wednesday afternoon, I walked into the artist’s studio that comprises half of the first floor of the building in which I work, and this was staring right back at me from the wall.
RSS
You know, this post really has me thinking. I am very sarcastic to the point where I’m known for it at work, with my circle of friends, etc. It is a way of hiding insecurities and doubts, but how do you just switch that off? Hmmm, thinking hurts.